{"id":17524,"date":"2025-11-16T17:35:54","date_gmt":"2025-11-16T16:35:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.wu.ac.at\/?p=17524"},"modified":"2025-11-17T16:26:47","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T15:26:47","slug":"125-years-of-property-prices-in-vienna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wu.ac.at\/en\/2025\/11\/125-years-of-property-prices-in-vienna\/","title":{"rendered":"125 Years of Property Prices in Vienna"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIs living in Vienna still affordable?\u201d was the question posed at the WU matters. WU talks.<\/a> discussion on November 12, 2025, on the WU campus.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Vienna is widely regarded to have a stable and socially balanced housing market with a strong public component and a high percentage of renters vs. homeowners: rented properties make up around 80% of the households in Vienna.<\/p>\n

In contrast to other cities, the development of housing prices remained relatively stable in Vienna even after 2007, i.e. at the onset of the financial crisis. Can Vienna\u2019s apparently crisis-proof market be generalized to the whole of Austria? In addition, the general popular sentiment is that housing is becoming increasingly expensive. So what are the facts?<\/p>\n

How have real estate prices actually developed since 1900? <\/span><\/h2>\n

Markus Lampe<\/strong>,\u00a0full professor and chair of the Department of Socioeconomics, WU Vienna,\u00a0Kilian Rieder<\/strong>, principal economist, and\u00a0Karin Wagner<\/strong>, senior principal,\u00a0Oesterreichische Nationalbank<\/strong>, laid the groundwork for the subsequent high-profile discussion by presenting their research project and its findings.<\/p>\n

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Karin Wagner, Oesterreichische Nationalbank, presents part of the methodological design.<\/p><\/div>\n

Based on thousands of purchase\u00a0agreements\u00a0from archives and \u201cVienna\u2019s cellars,\u201d as WU Prof. Markus Lampe put it, the tireless research team first reconstructed the price developments for a period of 125 years, and ultimately as far back as the late 1860s<\/strong>. By linking this data to the TU\/OeNB real estate price index, the researchers created a dataset for Vienna, covering the period from 1868 to 1990.<\/p>\n

Conclusion: exceptions that prove the rule?<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

Over the long term, the researchers observed moderate price increases of 1.2% per year, but these were punctuated by sharp price declines during crises.<\/p>\n

What was the role played by regulation and access to property?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Regulation, subsidies, and municipal housing projects continue to have a price-dampening effect, but their relative significance is declining. What can be said with certainty is that Vienna\u2019s housing market is still characterized by a low proportion of owner-occupied properties and a high proportion of rental properties.<\/p>\n

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The opinions of the panelists regarding regulations on the housing market differed greatly.<\/p><\/div>\n

After the presentations, representatives from various institutions addressed a range of questions, such as what price increases<\/strong> mean for financial market stability<\/strong> and whether Vienna is still considered affordable and attractive internationally<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Opinions differed greatly, especially on the subject of financial market stability<\/strong>, but see for yourself:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n